Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right.

With regards to the disparaging comments about my faith, I've heard worse, so I'm not going to lose sleep over that. What I actually found was most troubling in what the reverend said in the introduction was [that] he said in choosing our nominee we should inspect his religion, and [that] someone who is a good, moral person is not someone who we should select; instead, we should choose someone who subscribes to our religious belief. … And it was that principle, Governor, that I wanted you to [answer], “No, that's wrong, Reverend Jeffress.” Instead of saying, as you did, "Boy, that introduction knocked the ball out of the park," I'd have said, "Reverend Jeffress, you got that wrong. We should select people not based upon their faith.

Romney is right. The problem with Jeffress isn’t what he said about Mormonism. It’s what he said about religion as a voting issue. That statement was made onstage at the Values Voter Summit right before Perry spoke. And Perry has never clearly addressed it.

Shortly before going onstage to introduce Perry, Jeffress spoke with Michelle Goldberg of the Daily Beast. In remarks that weren’t published till later that night, Jeffress said it was “critical for a pastor to tell other Christians why it is imperative to vote for a Christian rather than a non-Christian.” He explained that “part of my hesitancy in supporting Governor Romney is I do not want to give credibility to a cult like Mormonism, which I believe having a Mormon president would do.”

In his introduction of Perry, Jeffress repeated the question he had posed in his press release: “Do we want a candidate who is a good, moral person, or do we want a candidate who is a born-again follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? Rick Perry is a proven leader. He is a true conservative. And he is a genuine follower of Jesus Christ.”

In retrospect, I’m sorry that I, along with rest of the press corps, got caught up in debating whether Mormons are Christians or whether Mormonism is a cult. Those questions don’t inherently matter. Jeffress has argued them in theological terms, and by his definitions, he’s correct. In fact, by his definition of “cult”—a human founder and scripture claiming further revelations—Christianity itself is, from a Jewish standpoint, a cult. Which means that anyone running for office is either a non-Christian or a cultist.

The question that matters is whether such theological concerns should drive voting decisions. That’s what Jeffress told Goldberg—“It is imperative to vote for a Christian rather than a non-Christian”—and repeated on CNN after his speech. “Born-again followers of Christ should always prefer a competent Christian … to a competent non-Christian like Mitt Romney,” Jeffress asserted. “As Christians, we have the duty to prefer and select Christians as our leaders.”

Why? Because Christians will honor Biblical values? That can’t be the answer: Jeffress said in his speech that being a “good, moral person” wasn’t enough. No, the answer is that we must vote this way to seek God’s favor. In comments videorecorded by the Houston Chronicle, Jeffress told reporters: “I believe God will bless any nation that follows God and will reject any nation that disobeys God. So to have a commander-in-chief who’s a true follower of Christ is very important for me as a Christian.”

Sounds pretty cultish to me.

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Perry wasn’t standing there when Jeffress delivered those words. Nor was he there when Jeffress called Mormonism a See You Last Tuesday. But Perry was standing offstage, basking in Jeffress’ praise, when the pastor, at the conference podium, urged the crowd to choose a “genuine follower of Jesus Christ” over a “good, moral person.” Even if Perry knew nothing about Jeffress’ past criticisms of Romney and Mormonism, he should have understood those words for what they were: a religious, not moral, test for public office. And he should have disowned them.

To this day, he hasn’t. He has said he doesn’t judge what’s in another person’s heart. He has said Mormonism isn’t a cult. But Perry—who said less than a month ago that “as a Christian” he has “a clear directive to support Israel”—hasn’t addressed the underlying question posed by Jeffress and restated by Romney: Should Christian voters prefer a Christian candidate to a moral non-Christian? Let’s hear his answer.